The Truth Will Set You Free
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: What will happen when the truth finally comes out?


Title: "The Truth Will Set You Free"  
Author: Pirate Turner  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: Season six  
Summary: What will happen when the truth finally comes out?  
Disclaimer: Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and Paige Halliwell; Leo Wyatt; Wyatt; and Charmed are all © & TM Spelling Television Inc. and are used without permission. Everything else is © & TM Pirate Turner. The author makes absolutely no profit whatsoever off of this story.

She stood at the window, her arms wrapped around the small child on her hip, as her sad eyes gazed out at the cold and lonely night. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and she was alone at the Manor with only Wyatt for company. Both Phoebe and Paige were out with their dates. They had tried to get her to come with them, claiming that she would not be in the way, but she had known better and had stayed at home. Besides, she had no desire to go out on the town. She had no desire to pretend that nothing was wrong or to fake the happiness that she had become so accustomed to forcing onto her face and into her voice and mannerisms.

When had she last been happy? When had her life came to such a point that the only happiness she ever had she faked? After she had lost Prue? After Leo? Both seemed like a lifetime ago. Snow drifted past the window, and Wyatt cooed in awe as he reached out and pressed a tiny hand to the glass, trying to reach the pretty white stuff. Normally, Piper would have shifted her position to hug her son, would have explained to Wyatt that the whiteness was called snow, and might even have told him that Prue had loved it the few times they'd been lucky enough to see it as snow was a rarity in San Francisco.

Tonight, however, she did none of that but instead told him softly, "I think it's time you went to sleep." She turned, walked him back over to his bed, and laid him down onto his back. Piper tucked her son in, leaned forward, and gently kissed him. It was as she was pulling back, a sad smile on her lips, and telling him, "Sweet dreams, sweetie," that she felt the familiarity of some one orbing in behind her. She didn't need to look behind her to know who it was. She could tell from the smell of his cologne that intermingled with the smell of the clouds and his own natural scent. She could tell from the slight change in the air around them. Most of all, she could tell from the skip of her heartbeat that still happened whenever he entered the room.

"Piper."

"Leo." She still had to struggle to speak his name with an even tone, a tone that gave away none of the feelings that engulfed her soul at the very sound of his voice.

"You didn't go out tonight?"

She wasn't sure if his observation was only that or a question. "No."

"Why not?"

She shrugged, carefully keeping the movement casual. "I didn't want to. Why should you care if I want to go out or stay home with my son?" Why should he indeed? It wasn't as if he still cared about her, only their offspring and her sisters' and her own careers as the Charmed Ones. When had he stopped caring? she wondered but not for the first time.

"_Our_ son," he gently corrected her. For a moment, he wished he could see her beautiful face, but then he realized that it was probably better he didn't. The delicious smell of her hair alone was already playing havoc with his hormones and, more importantly, his emotions. She had already made it very clear that he no longer meant anything more to her than being a White Lighter and her baby's father, but she still seemed to insist on trying to take away what few privileges with their child that he managed to maintain.

Her next words surprised him. As he had been thinking, Piper had cocked her head slightly to one side and had continued to watch Wyatt drifting off to sleep, her thoughts a complete mystery to him. "We did do that, didn't we?"

Her voice sounded so soft, sentimental, and filled with awe that he couldn't help taking a step closer to her and barely managed to resist wrapping his arms around her waist. His arms and hands still ached to hold her. "Yes," he breathed softly from just behind her, "we did."

Piper closed her eyes. Leo was so close to her that his breath blew gently across the back of her head. Every part of her screamed at her to turn around and put herself into his arms, but she knew he no longer wanted her there. She bit her lip to keep from crying out loud.

"Piper?" He could sense her sadness rolling off of her in waves, but he had no ideal that he was causing her such great pain. "What's wrong?" he asked, placing a gentle hand on her side, when she didn't answer him.

The side of her waist, where he touched her, burned with fire that only he had ever been able to truly quench. She looked up at the mobile he had fixed over Wyatt's crib. She was unable to make out the small objects as she tried desperately to force the tears from her eyes. "N-Nothing." Her voice betrayed her, and she cursed silently. He couldn't know what hold he still had on her.

"Piper," he spoke softly, "you can't lie to me." Couldn't she? Had he not failed to see through all the lies she had been steadily feeding not only him but the others, as well, ever since they had rescued him from the Amazons and he had lifted the spell he had placed her under? She tried even harder to force the tears from her eyes, but more only came instead.

"Piper, what is it?" He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and comfort her, but when he tried to turn her around, she snatched away from him. That was when his gaze followed hers to the mobile, and his lips parted slightly in surprise at the new object he found there. On the very edge of the mobile, hanging just slightly to the side so that it almost hovered over Piper's head, hung a sprig of mistletoe. "It looks like Phoebe's trying to take matters into her own hands again."

"Leave Phoebe out of this," Piper snapped at him. What did her sister have to do with this? Why was everything always about her sisters and the Charmed Ones, never about her or just the two of them?

"I didn't mean to bring her into it. I just . . . Well, she did it herself . . . or do you think it was Paige?"

"Leo, what in the world are you talking about?"

His eyebrows rose slightly in surprise. "You don't see it?" She was looking straight at it!

"See what?" Piper demanded, shaking her head in exasperation and anger beginning to edge into her tone.

Leo pointed at the mistletoe. "That -- the mistletoe." How could she not see it? Then realization struck, and his voice was quiet and filled with concern. "You're crying."

She ignored his comment; wiped angrily at her eyes, knowing that it was futile to try to pretend that she wasn't; and snapped out a response without taking the time to think before she spoke. "I suppose now you're going to want to kiss me, huh?"

"You don't have to make it sound so . . . so . . ." He was left groping for a word to describe how disgusting Piper's harsh tone made it sound.

"So what, Leo!" Piper demanded, her brown eyes blazing, as she whirled around to finally face him. "So what! I'm not the one that ended this relationship!"

"Aren't you!" Anger clouded his face and narrowed his eyes. "_You're_ the one who, for all the world, has been acting like a single mother! _You're_ the one who can't even remember that Wyatt is _our_ son, _not_ just yours! _You're_ the one who asked for a _divorce_!"

Piper started to respond, but Wyatt wailed from behind her. She shot a glance back at the crying baby before turning back to Leo. "Not here," she ground out and stormed past him. Leo looked helplessly from Piper's back to Wyatt's open mouth, then hurried after his ex-wife. His child would have to wait for he was simply not as important as his mother and this conversation that, if Leo didn't miss his guess, had been coming for some time.

* * *

The White Lighter had the distinct feeling that he had walked straight into a trap for it seemed that he had no sooner gone out of the nursery than Piper tore into him. "How _dare_ you!" she seethed. He started to ask how dare he what, but Piper continued on without giving him a chance to get a single syllable out. "Yes, he is our son, Leo, but _you're_ the one who doesn't act like he is! _You're_ the one who bailed out and left me to care for our son _alone_! _You're_ the one who's too busy parading around the clouds being a damn Elder to care about the ones down here who you claimed to love forever!"

"That's not true! I come down here every chance I get! I've even taken him up there!" His words seemed to pause the onslaught of her fury for a moment, and he took that opportunity to examine her face and look, _really_ look into her tear-filled eyes. "This isn't about Wyatt, is it?" he asked her, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Of course it is!" She could tell he did not believe her and tried another tactic instead. "No, you're right, Leo! It's not! Why should it be? Why should it be when everything is about your duty or mine or the Charmed Ones or saving the world but never about us, never about our baby, never about --"

Tears were now streaming down her face, and it tore at his heart to see her so stricken. "I didn't choose for our lives to be the way they are, Piper! If it was up to me, we wouldn't have ended up this way! You wouldn't be constantly in danger and always risking your live to save those of innocents; our son wouldn't be wanted by every evil thing to ever walk, fly, crawl, or slither across this Earth; and I wouldn't be cursed to be a fucking Elder!"

Piper's mouth fell open at his words. She had never seen Leo so furious or heard him cuss so violently. "Fucking?" she slowly repeated, her eyebrows rose. "Fucking Elder?" Had he just said that he was _cursed_ to be one?

Leo had to fight to get his words out from around the lump in his throat even as tears filled his own eyes. "Yes," he whispered, nodding slowly. He only realized exactly what he had called them when he started to repeat his words, and then he blushed. "Okay. So maybe I didn't exactly call Them the best thing in the world, but by the Gods, Piper, it's the way I feel! I am cursed to be one of them now! It used to be a dream of mine, but now . . ." He shook his head, tears swiftly filling his eyes to overrunning. "Now my only dream is unreachable."

"What . . . " Piper spoke so softly that she could barely make out her own voice. "What dream is that, Leo?"

His right hand reached out for her beautiful face, and when she did not jerk away from his attempted touch, his shaking hand cupped the side of her face. "You. And our son. What we had. What, by all rights, we should still have."

Piper's tears increased in both speed and number. "But I thought . . . you . . . you didn't . . . ?"

"Didn't what, Piper?" he asked, his brow creasing as his own tears began to spill down his cheeks. "Didn't care about you? Didn't _love_ you?" He shook his head before finally admitting what he had craved to be able to tell her for so long, "That's impossible. You're in my heart, in my soul, in the very _fiber_ of my _being_. I have always and _will_ always love you. _Nothing_ can stop that. Nothing can change that, not even the Elders, not even my having to take my place as one, not even _you_."

Her eyes sought his, desperately trying to make sure that each word he spoke was the truth. He could feel her trembling. "I never wanted to," she breathed shakily. "I never wanted to stop loving you. I never could stop loving you."

"Then why did you --?" he started to ask, confusion crossing his facial features.

"Because I thought that was what you wanted. Because I thought that was the only way."

"The only way for what?"

"The only way that I could survive. The only way that I could keep on living, and I didn't want to, Leo. I didn't."

"Then why did you?"

She sent a quick glance over his shoulder before looking back into his eyes. "For him. For Wyatt. For _our_ son." He started to speak, but the shaking of her head silenced him. "But why did _you_, Leo?"

"Why did I what?"

"Why did you let them make you an Elder? Why didn't you refuse?"

"You know why," he told her. "It's the same reason why you've never stopped being a Charmed One, even when you've had the chance to give up your powers and stop leading this life. They needed me. The world needed me. I had to do my part for the world and, in so doing, you and Wyatt."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wanted to. Gods know I wanted to."

"But you didn't. Why?"

"Because you didn't want to hear it. I wanted to make it as easy for you as I could. I didn't know how often, if at all, I'd be able to come down here once I accepted the position, and I know you've always wanted a normal life. I wanted to make you happy so I didn't insist and I made the biggest mistake of my life. I let you go. I let you hate me."

"I never could. I tried, but I couldn't."

"What about --?"

"What's his name?" Piper asked, cutting Leo off. "I used him, Leo, pure and simple. I used him to try to get over you, but I couldn't. Wyatt isn't the reason I never brought him home with me. I only used Wyatt for that reason. The _real_ reason is that I knew the entire time I was with him that I didn't want to be with him. I wanted to be with _you_. I don't want a normal life, Leo, not really."

"You don't?" he asked in surprise, his eyebrows knitting together.

"I don't," she insisted, shaking her head. "Not really. I learned that years ago with Dan, and this reminded me of that. I don't want a normal life, because I can't have both a normal life and the man I love."

"Who would be . . .?"

Piper gently slapped his shoulder. "Don't do that! You know who -- _you_! You are the only man I have ever truly loved, and you are the only man I will ever love."

"Then what are we doing still apart?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she answered truthfully.

"Neither do I." He caressed her cheek, and she thrilled at his touch.

He continued to caress her face, and she closed her eyes in ecstasy as he slid his hand over her smooth skin. His hand ran up and passed into her dark hair, and he began to stroke her silky strands. He took a step closer, and for the first time in a very long time, indeed in what felt like forever to both, she fully welcomed him into her vicinity. His face started to inch closer to hers, but her eyes fluttered open. She breathed his name. "Leo?"

"Yes?" he asked in a hushed whisper. He would have gladly given her anything and everything, but the one thing she asked for both surprised and scared him.

"Do you still have those divorce papers?"

"They're in my pocket."

"Did you sign them yet?"

His heart faltered. Oh Gods, no! This couldn't be happening again! "No," he answered. His voice shook, and his entire body had gone cold and stiff. No part of him would answer a single command from him in that moment.

"Good." She smiled as she reached into the pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled out a thick wad of papers. He did not dare to breathe as she opened them and checked to make sure that they were the divorce papers. When she realized that she did indeed hold the horrid document in her hands, Piper's eyes met his again. Then, she did the most thrilling thing he had seen all year -- she exploded them into a million tinny pieces of paper.

He broke into a smile that lit up his handsome face even as she leaned closer into him. "Now how about that kiss, Mister Halliwell?" Their lips met gently at first and then with a ravenous hunger that had been gnawing away at both. Their arms wrapped tightly around one another's bodies as they clung to each other, both terrified that they would be awoken from another dream at any time, but instead of mere dreams, they rediscovered their own special Heaven in each other's arms that night.

* * *

Wyatt smiled from where he had been left alone in his nursery. He could hear his parents on the other side of his door and knew that everything was as it should be again. The baby gurgled happily as he looked up at his mobile. His tiny hand waved, and the mistletoe promptly disappeared.

**The End**


End file.
